What wifi iface are you trying to roam? As far as I know, sae-mixed does not work with roaming. Try with wpa2.
Thank you for your reply I'm testing with the SSID: bloedzuigers, that is using wpa2-psk. So that should work right?
Yes, I have this configuration, apart from standard configuration:
option ieee80211r '1'
option ft_over_ds '0'
option ieee80211k '1'
option time_advertisement '2'
option time_zone 'CET-1CEST,M3.5.0,M10.5.0/3'
option wnm_sleep_mode '1'
option bss_transition '1'
option ft_psk_generate_local '1'
And it works perfectly. Try with it (adjust the time_zone if you want). I don't need to configure mobility domain or nasid (OpenWrt generates it by default). If with that does not work, maybe you have the wrong wpad installed or it's affected by other configurations.
I'll try, I've wpad-basic-mbedtls 2023-09-08-e5ccbfc6-6 installed do you have a different one?
I have the wpad-mbedtls, without basic. I needed for the mesh (802.11s) protocol but I don't know if it is needed for roaming too.
On a sidenote:
See also https://forum.openwrt.org/t/fast-seamless-roaming-through-ethernet-with-openwrt/
The (out of the box) Non-FT roaming is already quite fast - FT roaming might only benefit you when using 802.1X/EAP / during gaming / during Zoom/Teams while moving through your house.
Thank you all for your reply's Ive uninstalled the wpad-basic and installed the wpad full and will do some experiments tomorrow to see if I can make it work. I understand that the roaming will not be the silver bullet in regards to performance gains, but it should work right. I must be doing something wrong.
Unfortunately I'm not able to get this to work, i suspect the device WAX220 is not fully compatible with the current stable openwrt, at least some features do not seem to work yet. For example I'm also experiencing slow upload speeds like described in this post (also a netgear wax2.. series) WAX206 Slow Upload Speeds
The device is stable but there must be something not fully compatible, I'll try the snapshot this week which is from the 22 of Jan to see it that helps. Thanks for the help so far an will keep you posted.
This does come up often and I usually lurk on this topic.
However the last time it came up I , again, went to the web to get feedback that is not so much OpenWrt centric.
I was surprised to find some devices just do not like to roam. Android was specifically mentioned in this list.
So if you have one or two devices that have no problem and a few stubborn ones, look around for the stubborn ones outside OpenWrt.
You never mentioned if it was all devices or some. All or some would, pretty much, answer that postulation.
Have you started with a configuration that has fast roaming disabled entirely, and just focused on tuning the radios to get your devices to roam that way?
The process starts with channel selection (non-overlapping channels) and power levels (almost always reducing the power), as well as physical placement of the APs. Done properly, this will setup a roaming situation where client devices will roam nearly seamlessly from one AP to another as you move through the space.
Only after that is done should you attempt to use 802.11r (and/or the k/v standards). Those must have a solid foundation to work properly. And, FWIW, these additional standards can cause problems on some devices where roaming would be fine without.
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Hi LilRedDog,
I've tested it with a Mac (Sanoma 14.2.1 (23C71)) and a Android phone (version 14) both did not roam, I can also test with a windows machine to see it that does work. But first I'll try the optimization as suggested by psherman. Will keep you posted.
Hi psherman, I'll try this and see if it helps, please bare with me I cannot freely test hence the kids and wife are also using it so I need to find some sparse test time.
But thank you for the the link, it looks promissing and indeed maybe the whole FT/Fast roaming is not needed it properly set up.
Is Wi-Fi assist turned on , on the phones?
Hi dnns, I have exactly the same problem as you but on the Zyxel wsm20 with a very similar network layout as yours. I also cannot get any of my devices to roam with any of the available openwrt tools I tried. Once a devices log into any of the AP it seems to hook onto it and never move even when i move to a location where the other AP are -70dBm ! Really weird.
Did you ever make any progress with yours ? maybe you can give me some hints as I'm running out of things to try.
thanks.
Hi Andy,
Unfortunately no, I did tweak the power settings to better facilitate the switching over from one AP to the other, however it always resulted in a 4WAY handshake instead of the 2WAY it supposed to do.
For now I'm just giving up and hope that it will be fixed in a future release, but to be fair I can live without it, but it would be nice to have it working, should you manage to get it work, i would be really interested.
KR,
Dennis
yes, I've reached the same conclusion. I actually mapped the entire house to read dBm levels and entered into spreadsheet to make sure roaming should be happening. I tried openwrt 802.11s with mesh11sd, with and without 802.11r then tried with 'dawn' package. Everything confirmed what I already knew. I think either openwrt or zyxel have some issues when it comes to roaming. I'm also leaving it here for now since there's is nothing else I can do. A lot of topics talk about placement and power changes, I tried all of that and still nothing. The data just doesn't tie up with the practice. You would think if one AP shows 30dBms and the other 80dBms then roaming should not only happen it's difficult to see how it cannot; yet all my modern android phones, laptops and tablets just stick to the AP they first log onto.
thanks for your reply.
I had the same problem and the only way to make roaming happening was using usteer.
Possibly this https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/14620 will solve the issue in certain scenarios
maybe, but after days troubleshooting I decided to reload oem firmware and sell all 4 of them on. My other mesh (velop in bridge mode) works flawlessly. The main problem with the zyxel was IP routing loss between main and nodes. When this happens power off/on nodes and resetting main node mesh wifi still doesn't bring them back so i have to physcially move them to the main router/switch and reconnect them, after that all is fine again until next time. My backhaul is all wifi6-AX ch100.
thanks for everyone's contribution, but I have to say goodbye to these zyxel. My next mesh will be from a more reputable company and tri-band since wired backhaul is impossible for me.
I just ran into the same issue. I finally upgraded from 22.05.. to 23.03.3. At first I setup fast roaming (802.11r) among 3 access points. It worked great and was easy to setup.
Then I tried to implement VLANs for a guest network. I got the VLANs all setup and working correctly, but it broke the 802.11r Fast Roaming. I get the same "key addition" errors that you mention.
I haven't been able to figure out if it's (1) a configuration issue on my end, (2) an issue with swconfig and DSA or (3) a genuine bug in OpenWrt.